Maliki: Dead Man Walking

Robert Dreyfuss

Maliki’s message was a simple one, and he delivered while standing in front of his puppet master, the scowling Dick Cheney. Did Maliki headline the sectarian bloodletting and ethnic cleansing in Iraq, the death squads and militias? No. Did Maliki present a plan for securing Iraq’s capital? No. Instead, he stuck to the Republican Party’s 2006 electoral talking points: that Iraq is the central front in the so-called Global War on Terrorism. He cited 9/11, a crime perpetrated by what he called "impostors of Islam," and he portrayed the violence in Iraq as the direct continuation of America’s effort against Al Qaeda: Iraq is the front line of this struggle. … Iraq is your ally in the War on Terror. … The greatest threat Iraq faces is terror created by extremists. Iraq is free and the terrorists cannot stand this. … This terrorist front is a threat to every civilized country. Iraq is the battle that will determine the war. … I will not allow Iraq to become a launching pad for Al Qaeda. .. Iraq will be the graveyard for terrorism and terrorists." Of course, all of this is nonsense...

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